Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity by Maria Popova Why creativity is like LEGO, or what Richard Dawkins has to do with Susan Sontag and Gandhi. In May, I had the pleasure of speaking at the wonderful Creative Mornings free lecture series masterminded by my studiomate Tina of Swiss Miss fame. I spoke about Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity, something at the heart of Brain Pickings and of increasing importance as we face our present information reality. These are pages from the most famous florilegium, completed by Thomas of Ireland in the 14th century. In talking about these medieval manuscripts, Adam Gopnik writes in The New Yorker: Our minds were altered less by books than by index slips.” Which is interesting, recognizing not only the absolute vale of content but also its relational value, the value not just of information itself but also of information architecture, not just of content but also of content curation. You may have heard this anecdote. Kind of LEGOs. And I like this last part. Do stuff.
Four Famous New Year's Resolution Lists: Jonathan Swift, Susan Sontag, Marilyn Monroe, Woody Guthrie by Maria Popova “Stay glad. Keep hoping machine running. Love everybody. ‘Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions, but instead of regurgitating the most common ones — like changing habit loops, exercising more, and being more productive — here is a look at some of history’s more unusual resolution lists from the diaries, letters, and personal effects of cultural icons: Writing in A Tale of a Tub in 1699, at the age of 32, Jonathan Swift — best-known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels — compiled a list of 17 aspirations for his far future, titled “When I come to be old.” When I come to be old. 1699.Not to marry a young Woman. via Lists of Note In 1972, 39-year-old Susan Sontag noted in her diary: Susan Sontag by Peter Hujar, gelatin silver print, 1975 Kindness, kindness, kindness.I want to make a New Year’s prayer, not a resolution. Then, in early 1977, she resolved: Starting tomorrow — if not today: I will get up every morning no later than eight. Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
John Cleese on the 5 Factors to Make Your Life More Creative by Maria Popova “Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.” Much has been said about how creativity works, its secrets, its origins, and what we can do to optimize ourselves for it. Space (“You can’t become playful, and therefore creative, if you’re under your usual pressures.”)Time (“It’s not enough to create space; you have to create your space for a specific period of time.”)Time (“Giving your mind as long as possible to come up with something original,” and learning to tolerate the discomfort of pondering time and indecision.)Confidence (“Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.”)Humor (“The main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.”) A few more quotable nuggets of insight excerpted below the video. Creativity is not a talent. We need to be in the open mode when pondering a problem — but! Thanks, Simon Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
John Steinbeck on Falling in Love: A 1958 Letter by Maria Popova “If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.” Nobel laureate John Steinbeck (1902-1968) might be best-known as the author of East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men, but he was also a prolific letter-writer. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters constructs an alternative biography of the iconic author through some 850 of his most thoughtful, witty, honest, opinionated, vulnerable, and revealing letters to family, friends, his editor, and a circle of equally well-known and influential public figures. Among his correspondence is this beautiful response to his eldest son Thom’s 1958 letter, in which the teenage boy confesses to have fallen desperately in love with a girl named Susan while at boarding school. New York November 10, 1958Dear Thom:We had your letter this morning. Complement with six tips on writing from Steinbeck. via Letters of Note Donating = Loving Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. Share on Tumblr
NeuroKnitting | knitic by Varvara Guljajeva , Mar Canet , and Sebastian Mealla Special thanx to Sytse Wierenga! We have plotted brainwave activity into a knitted pattern. Using a wearable, non-invasive EEG headset, we recorded users’ affective states while listening to Bach’s “Goldberg Variations”, concretely the aria and its first seven variations. Why have we used music? Concerning the selected music, the first case study uses Bach’s Goldberg Variations as a stimuli for the users. The knitted garments picture the listener’s affective and cognitive states during the experiment. Neuro Knitting represents a novel way of personal, generative design and fabrication. More photos about the whole process here>> Authors This project is a collaboration between artist-duo Varvara Guljajeva( and Mar Canet( and MTG researcher Sebastian Mealla ( Together they had brainstorm this art project to demonstrate art and science collaboration.
Letters of Note In April of 1937, Jamaican-born mechanic Canute Frankson left his home in Detroit and travelled to Europe to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a group of approximately 2,800 American volunteers who were keen to offer support in the fight against Franco and his supporters during the Spanish Civil War. Three months after arriving, Frankson wrote the following powerful letter to a friend back home in an effort to explain why he, "a Negro," had chosen to participate in "a war between whites who for centuries have held us in slavery." Frankson did return home just over a year later; sadly, he died shortly afterwards in a road traffic accident. As we know, Franco was ultimately victorious. Albacete, Spain July 6, 1937My Dear Friend:I'm sure that by this time you are still waiting for a detailed explanation of what has this international struggle to do with my being here.
Do It: 20 Years of Famous Artists' Irreverent Instructions for Art Anyone Can Make by Maria Popova “Art is something that you encounter and you know it’s in a different kind of space from the rest of your life, but is directly connected to it.” One afternoon in 1993, legendary art critic, curator, and interviewer extraordinaire Hans Ulrich Obrist — mind of great wisdom on matters as diverse as the relationship between patterns and chance and the trouble with “curation” itself — sat down in Paris’s Café Select with fellow co-conspirers Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier, and the do it project was born: A series of instructional procedures by some of the greatest figures in contemporary art, designed for anyone to follow as a sort of DIY toolkit for creating boundary-expanding art. Over the twenty years that followed, manifestations of the project popped up in exhibitions around the world, from the most underground galleries to the most prestigious museums. RECIPE FOR BUCKY FULLER Skin but do not stone a peach. Sculptor Nairy Baghramian (2012): I. Start a rumor.
The 100 Best iPhone Apps OB Roundup Do you need new iPhone apps? Are you tired of the same old same old? This list of the 100 best iPhone apps is designed to help you find new or new-to-you apps that will make life with your smartphone simply better. Before you start downloading apps willy-nilly, make sure you've updated your operating system to the latest version (iOS 8.1.3 at the time of this writing). If you have an iPhone 6 Plus or iPhone 6, you get to experience a few perks that people with older iPhone models don't have. Here at PCMag, my colleagues and I test hundreds of mobile apps each year, writing reviews and sharing helpful tips when we find great ones. Other apps on this list come from our own personal use as well as the advice of readers, friends, and colleagues. Before you check out the complete list of the 100 best iPhone apps, let me address a few frequently asked questions: 100 slides? Wait. You left out some of the most important apps, like Safari, iTunes, and Siri!
Not just a girl….. » Jaime Moore photography So my amazing daughter, Emma, turned 5 last month, and I had been searching everywhere for new-creative inspiration for her 5yr pictures. I noticed quite a pattern of so many young girls dressing up as beautiful Disney Princesses, no matter where I looked 95% of the “ideas” were the “How to’s” of how to dress your little girl like a Disney Princess. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Disney Princesses, from their beautiful dresses, perfect hair, gorgeous voices and most with ideal love stories in the mix you can’t help but become entranced with the characters. But it got me thinking, they’re just characters, a writers tale of a princess (most before 1998)…an unrealistic fantasy for most girls (Yay Kate Middleton!). It started me thinking about all the REAL women for my daughter to know about and look up too, REAL women who without ever meeting Emma have changed her life for the better. *NEW* February 7, 2014 - We are so thankful and overwhelmed by such an amazing response.
New Year's Resolution Reading List: 9 Essential Books on Reading and Writing by Maria Popova Dancing with the absurdity of life, or what symbolism has to do with the osmosis of trash and treasure. Hardly anything does one’s mental, spiritual, and creative health more good than resolving to read more and write better. If anyone can make grammar fun, it’s Maira Kalman — The Elements of Style Illustrated marries Kalman’s signature whimsy with Strunk and White’s indispensable style guide to create an instant classic. The original Elements of Style was published in 1919 in-house at Cornell University for teaching use and reprinted in 1959 to become cultural canon, and Kalman’s inimitable version is one of our 10 favorite masterpieces of graphic nonfiction. On a related unmissable note, let the Elements of Style Rap make your day. Anne Lamott might be best known as a nonfiction writer, but Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life affirms her as a formidable modern philosopher as well. On the itch of writing, Lamott banters: On why we read and write: On feedback:
15 Awesome Young Adult Book-Inspired Manicures Ever had the urge to paint your nails to match your favorite book? Check out these amazing nail art tributes to favorite young adult books. Becky at The Nail Art Hobby wears her The Fault in Our Stars pride. Callie was inspired by Will Grayson, will grayson for this set of nails. Rebecca at Rebecca Loves Nails is inspired by Ellen Hopkins’s Glass for her manicure. Amy at Adventures of a Nail Art Addict‘s fierce nails inspired by The Hunger Games. Vicky at Books Biscuits and Tea not only rocks the Divergent nail art, but she has a tutorial so you can get the look if you want it, too. Natalie at Books Etc shows off her fierce Shadow and Bone nails. Thuy at Nite Lite Book Reviews does an amazing job replicating the cover of Laura Buzo’s Love and Other Perishable Items. Jen has an entire Tumblr dedicated to bookish nail art called Pages and Polish. Reynje at WordChasing was inspired by the zombies in Courtney Summers’s This is Not a Test to zombify her nails. Some Beautiful Redemption nails.